


Make It Yours

by ScotlandEvander



Series: Various States [10]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Established Relationship, Feels, Home, Loki Needs a Hug, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-23
Updated: 2013-08-23
Packaged: 2017-12-24 10:58:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,450
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/939169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScotlandEvander/pseuds/ScotlandEvander
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where Steve opens his mouth and blurts something out Loki never imagined Steve would say.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make It Yours

 

* * *

_I know you didn’t bring me out here to drown / So why am I ten feet under and upside down_   


_-Lifehouse, “Storm”_

* * *

Steve Rogers was iffy on a few things. A few of the things he was iffy on at the moment: 

-Cell phones. If they were phones, why did they do the job of a music player, a camera, and a computer?

-The Internet. Where did the Internet start? Where did it end? Everything has to start and end, yet the Internet did neither. 

\- The Dodgers were in LA not Brooklyn. How did THAT even make sense? 

-Loki had his own apartment. 

Steve had been thrilled when Loki showed him the airy, spacious apartment located in a pre-war townhouse on the Upper East Side. (Well, _thrilled_ was the wrong word. Steve couldn’t figure out why Loki was leaving Brooklyn other than he was kind of snob and where else would Loki head other than the Manhattan’s Upper East Side? That was where old money resided, where the rich played, and lived. The apartment was right off Park Avenue for crying out loud.) Between the building and the apartment, it was a combination of old and new, sleek and classic. A perfect blend for Loki. The whole joint screamed LOKI as loud as the apartment Steve had in Brooklyn yelled STEVE. 

Steve had said it was wonderful and Loki ought to sign the lease. 

Loki agreed, went away with his real estate agent, and moved out of Steve’s within twenty-four hours of having Steve look at the apartment. 

Steve had spent that first night Loki was in his own apartment staring at the ceiling quite unhappy with the fact Loki was in a different burrow. (Or that was what he told himself was the problem.) 

Climbing the stairs to the front door of the building, Steve felt as if everyone was staring at him and wondering what he was doing in this kind of neighborhood. He felt as if he was a sore thumb sneaking around all sorts of graceful, elegant fingers. Loki had told Steve to buzz when he arrived (Loki’s building had a working buzzer, unlike Steve’s). Letting himself into the tiny lobby, Steve stared at the rows of buzzers, his eyes focusing on one labeled Laufey-Odinson. He was about to press it when the door opened, bringing in the chilly late spring air.  

“Ah!”

Steve startled, finding him nose to nose with Loki in small entry. 

“Er, hi. I guess it’s okay I didn’t buzz,” Steve said, moving over so Loki could unlock the door to the main building. 

That was when he noticed something was wrong. 

“Loki, what happened to your fingers?”

“Nothing,” Loki snapped. He fumbled with the keys till he somehow managed to open the door. “They will be fine presently.”

“Did you break them?”

Steve was horrified to think of Loki with broken bones. Yeah, he’d seen Loki after being Hulk Smashed into Stark’s concrete floor out in California. And, yeah, after this Loki moved a little stiffly, but he was fine— mostly due to having access to his magic when he sustained the injuries.

“But you…you don’t have magic,” Steve whispered, as Loki held the door open with his foot while he somehow also opened up his mailbox. 

“No, Steven, I do not,” Loki laughed. The laugh sounded fake, forced, and more wrong than the fact all Loki’s fingers were broken. Steve saw a moment later why he’d been acting weird, as a woman walked out of the open door Loki’s foot was still holding open. 

“Hi, Luke,” the woman purred. “Oh, what did you do to your hands?” 

Due to the fact the country associated the name _Loki_ with the maniacal being with an alien army, SHEILD insisted Loki operate under a different name when mixing with the locals. 

Loki had gone along with it in so much as he changed his first name. He kept the mouthful of a last name. (No one knew Evil Loki’s last name, as he’d always proclaimed he was Loki of Asgard, not Loki Laufey-Odinson, or whatever combination he might have used.) 

“Good evening, Ashley,” Loki greeted, bowing his head. “Had a small accident. Nothing to worry about.” 

Ashley looked as if she wished to linger and heap her concern for Loki, but then saw Steve and her eyes bugged out.

“You know Captain America?” she blurted out, looking back at Loki. 

Steve sighed. Usually, if he wasn’t sporting the uniform, no one bothered him. 

“Do I?” Loki inquired, glancing over his shoulder at Steve. “I thought you said your name was Steven.”

Mischief sparkled in those eyes before Loki turned his attention back to Ashley. 

“Steve Rogers is Captain America, duh,” Ashley laughed, flopping her golden hair over her shoulder. “Everyone knows that, Luke.” She looked at Steve and jerked her thumb at Loki, and said, “He’s so strange sometimes.” 

She was too tan and too blonde for either to be natural. 

Steve shifted uncomfortably on his feet. 

Loki and Ashley exchanged a few more pleasantries before Loki managed to get him and Steve out of the entry and upstairs to his apartment. Once they were inside, he cornered Loki in the kitchen and demanded, “What did you do to your fingers?”

Loki’s face hardened and he looked away. 

“Loki, please,” Steve pleaded. “Are you hurt? Do you need to see a doctor?”

“A doctor set them,” Loki allowed, keeping his back to Steve as he bustled around the kitchen.  They were supposed to go out to dinner, but Steve had a feeling they’d be staying in as Loki gathered ingredients to make dinner. “Steven, what do you remember when you first met me?”

Steve blinked, rocking backwards a little. “What?”

Loki paused as he rifled through the pantry, glancing at Steve over his shoulder. “The first time you saw me in person.”

Steve blushed. He remembered it as if it were yesterday. He’d gotten off the plane that had flown him and Coulson to the Hellicarrier. Steve was feeling uncomfortable from the clear admiration Coulson felt for him, which Steve didn’t feel he deserved. When he’d exited the plane, he looked for an escape and instead saw off in the distance a tall, slim man dressed in dark colored clothing. Steve had surprised himself because his first coherent thought upon disembarking the plane was, “Wow, he’s pretty.” 

His next realization (after he’d thought, “Did I just think that?”) was that pretty didn’t do the guy justice. The closer he and his new guide got to the man, Steve realized he was utterly breathtaking and had gorgeous green pools for eyes. He wore his clothes with an ease that Steve had only witnessed in pictures. 

Then Natasha had said, “This is Loki.”

Loki was the name of the blurry figure that had stolen the Tesseract and proclaimed he was going to rule the world. 

Steve hadn’t been made aware there were two Lokies at the time, so he’d completely internally freaked out. (Then freaked out further when he realized he was being weird and still thinking the guy was pretty.)

“What was your first impression of Reindeer Games?” Loki asked without waiting for Steve to give a verbal answer to his first question. 

Steve snapped his head up and said, “He was a little deranged.”

Loki quirked an eyebrow. 

“He wasn’t like you.”

Loki laughed darkly. “That, Steven, is a problem. They are both me. I am Reindeer Games, as well as the man you met on the Hellicarrier.”

“What does this have to do with your fingers?”

Loki looked away and braced himself on the kitchen island (Loki’s kitchen was large enough there was room to move as well as an island). 

(Steve was a little jealous. If only he could move the apartment to Brooklyn.) 

“Steven, while I know you and the others seem to think the Loki that fought along side you is who I really am, that is not true. I am both good and evil, a bag of angry cats as well as collected, precise and sane.”

Steve frowned. 

“I cannot be one with the other,” Loki quietly said. “No matter how many punching bags I kick down and destroy, no matter how much I suppress the mad side, he is always there. I know what he lived through, I know his thought process as I am him. He is stronger than the man you first met.”

Steve felt mildly alarmed. 

“I have to…reconcile the two halves and it’s harder than I originally believed.”

“I don’t understand.”

Loki looked up, giving Steve a sad smile. “No. I do not believe you could. Oh, do not look at me that way, Steven. It was not a slight against you.”

Steve wasn’t sure how he was looking at Loki, but he felt helpless. He wanted to fix everything, yet had no clue what was broken. Other than Loki. He thought he’d been helping Loki fix himself. Clearly, Steve was wrong. 

“I spoke to Bruce,” Loki said, pushing himself away from the island and moving around the kitchen again. “I wished to know how he dealt with being two separate people.”

“But…but…”

“It’s similar, not the same,” Loki said, taking a saucepan out and setting it on the stove.

“Did, uh, did he help?”

“Not as I originally was hoping,” Loki admitted. “But, he did suggest something that allowed me to become physically tired for the first time in a long while instead of emotionally wrought.”

“What?” Steve gasped. 

“Do not blame yourself for not realizing,” Loki went on, doing his hardest not to look at Steve’s face. “I hide quite well in plain sight. My therapist…well, she’s been trying since I began seeing her for me to…well, let go.”

“Oh.”

Steve was out of his depth. 

Loki was suddenly right in front of Steve, hand on his face. It felt different and weird, mostly because of the fact the fingers were incased in splints and bandages. 

“You will never know how much you’ve have helped,” Loki said quietly. “I still have a long way to go before I am…I am well.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

“I only know as much as you let me in.”

Loki stared at Steve before dropping his hand and moving away. 

“You are more in than most,” Loki said.

“I…I…I…”

Loki chuckled. “Steven.”

He was once again standing in front of Steve. How he managed to move so quickly and quietly without the aid of magic was a mystery to Steve. 

“You are home.”

Steve was about to say, no, he wasn’t home. He was in Manhattan on the Upper East Side where he felt like an impostor, but then Steve thought about what Loki said with that soft, shining look in those beach glass eyes. 

“I am home,” Steve whispered, bringing his own hand up to Loki’s face and gently tracing one of his cheekbones. His feelings these passed two weeks (and during the months Loki was in Asgard) suddenly made a lot more sense. “You are home.”

Loki looked downright shocked.

“I don’t…I…well…I don’t like the apartment now that you’ve left,” Steve blurted out.

And couldn’t believe he’d just said that. He knew— he had been told in no uncertain terms the reason Loki was moving into his own apartment was because he needed his own space, his own residence to establish himself, and get to know himself in his current state. Steve understood. (Didn’t like it, but understood.) 

“Steven,” Loki said quietly, letting his head drop to Steve’s shoulder. 

Steve put his arms around the Trickster and pulled the slender man closer. 

“I know you need this, you have to do this, but…you are home,” Steve said.

Home was where the heart was.

Home was where you put your hat.

Home was wherever the heck Loki was.  

Loki let out a shuddering breath. It danced across Steve’s neck, wet and warm. Steve began to rub slow circles on the demigod’s back, wondering what he’d said wrong. 

* * *

_The sun goes down / The stars come out / And all that counts is here and now / My universe will never be the same_

_-The Wanted, “Glad You Came”_

* * *

Loki cried. 

Right on Steve’s shoulder. 

The last time Loki had shed tears was during his battle with Thor. A lone tear had escaped his eye as he had had a moment of clarity before he’d plunged a knife into Thor’s gut and threw him out of Stark’s window (the first time, he didn’t clearly remember the second). The last time he’d shed tears as a whole being was when he’d let go of Gungnir.

Till now. 

Loki was lost, confused and adrift in a sea of misery. He battled on a daily basis with the side of him that wished to subjugate, rage, and destroy. Even after Bruce’s help at getting some aggression out that afternoon, it lurked under the surface. The dark voices whispered in the back of his mind he did not deserve this life he was leading, he did not deserve love as he was a monster. It whispered for him to make those who’d made him feel like this pay for their slights. 

He knew he must accept this aspect of him would always be there. He’d never be able to carry on as he had before the madness overtook. Loki knew he’d have to remain as he was now: magic-less and weak. The All-Father would never return him to his former self as he was always going to be a danger.

Loki was okay with this. As long as the All-Father let him remain on Midgard with Steve, Loki did not care. 

And that scared him a little. 

It was his therapist suggestion Loki get his own apartment, a space to call his own, worried he was becoming too dependent on Steve too quickly. She suggested he needed somewhere to “hang his hat” as he’d never had some place that was his alone. (She knew his true identity, knew he was the man who had tried to conquer the Earth with an alien army, but she did not know he was a prince. Someday he would tell her, when he was ready.) 

Loki had thought, at the time, moving was a good idea. He thought that in going forward with his therapist suggestion would lead to the Mad One quieting down and going into hibernation. He would strike out on his own, be independent, and the fears would hush. So, he began to seriously scour for apartments in New York City. He was picky and knew what he wanted. He hadn’t realized it didn’t exist in Brooklyn and he’d wind up on a different island than Steve. But there were trains, buses, and Stark’s chauffeured cars. 

Loki had thought it was fine. 

Loki was under the delusion it was perfectly normal to feel the ache in his chest when he woke each morning not wrapped around Steve. 

While he loved the apartment (so much room, so white and airy), he missed Steve horridly. Loki saw Steve daily, but it was so much different from what they’d had the first few weeks he’d been on Midgard. 

He’d been in the apartment a fortnight and he wanted to pack up his meager possessions (mostly clothing) and go back to Brooklyn. 

This made him angry, so he continued to act like nothing was bothering him till it got too be too much and he’d gone to speak with Bruce.

Bruce said if home made him less crazy, he ought to spent more time with it. 

Steve was home.

Loki was home to Steve. 

It made Loki cry, be it from happiness or simply from being miserable, he wasn’t sure.

“I could come here,” Steve said over Loki’s stuttered breaths. 

Loki was sure Steve could feel his confusion. Loki refused to let Steve see him cry, so he kept his face plastered in the man’s neck. (Yes, he was aware Steve likely knew he was crying, but he couldn’t see it.) 

“My lease is almost up,” Steve said after clearing his throat. “I know your therapist suggested you strike out on your own…but if we’re both…well…uh…”

Loki pulled back and stared at the very red Steve Rogers, who cleared his throat and made a cloth handkerchief appear out of nowhere. He extended to Loki, who quickly dried his face with it before folding it into fourths. 

“You wish to move here? A place you’re uncomfortable?”

Steve rubbed the back of his neck before lowering his hand and giving Loki a hard look. “You are home.”

“You hate it here.”

“You love it here.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Yeah, you do. You are okay in Brooklyn, but you like it here better.”

“You hate it here.”

“I don’t hate it. I feel uncomfortable in this kind of neighborhood just like I feel uncomfortable on Asgard. And for pretty much the same reason: I don’t fit in.”

Loki scoffed. 

“I am a kid from Brooklyn who didn’t have a lot, Loki. I didn’t grow up like you in a palace or in luxury like most of the people who reside on this side of town. But, I can get used to it.”

“You’re not a hipster.”

“Huh?”

Loki let out a laugh. 

“Hipster?” Steve asked, looking adorably confused. 

“Those are the people who reside in your neighborhood,” Loki explained. “Or did. The neighborhood you chose is an up and coming area, per the real estate agent I hired. He told me several times it was filled with hipsters, which the man detested for some reason. He was a lot happier when I wished to look in this area.”

“You didn’t rent this apartment, did you?”

“No. Thor set me up with enough money I’m sure no one explained the concept of currency to the dolt.”

“Where— gold. Asgard is swimming in gold.”

Steve shook his head, eyes rolling towards the ceiling. 

Loki looked at his nails. “You’d be amazed what you can get for a few worthless hunks of ruined statue here.”

“Hunks of ruined statue?”

“Ah, yes, you were likely never shown the sculpting areas,” Loki said, flapping his hands. “Where do you think we make all that glitters on Asgard? Did you believe it just appeared?”

“Well, no…”

“Anyways, a few scraps and it seems I’m a millionaire. Not anything on parr with Stark, but I can afford an apartment in Manhattan. So, if you wish to keep your abode in Brooklyn, I will simply rent this place out.”

Loki gazed around the kitchen and tried not to show how he’d miss all the space, before looking back at Steve. 

“No.”

“Steven.”

“Hey, you moved to Midgard from your own home. You came to get better and you like the Upper East Side. You are comfortable _here_. Yeah, you can get by in Brooklyn, but you like it better up here. I know why you do,” Steve admitted, running a hand through his hair. “So, uh…are we going to move in together?”

Steve looked as if he had just suggested the pair get married— or something else Earth shattering. 

“If you wish and believe it is the right choice.”

Loki wasn’t going to argue if Steve wanted to move in. Loki was surprised he’d suggested it. It was so forward.

“I…”

Steve trailed off, leaving the kitchen. He was wearing a wistful, yet contemplative expression on his face, so Loki let him leave without demanding he finish his thought. After a moment, Loki followed, finding Steve staring into the empty second bedroom. Secretly, (meaning Loki hadn’t even admitted it to himself) he had set the room aside for Steve as a studio. The light was wonderful no matter the weather and the tile floor would be easy to clean if Steve ever got paint all over the place. The last resident had used it as a child’s bedroom (hence the tile maybe) and it was painted a horrid shade of pink, but Loki figured they could remedy that. 

“I…”

“Studio.”

“Really?”

“What else would we use this for? Unless you require your own sleeping quarters.”

“No. Why— oh. Uh…”

Loki shook his head, rolling his eyes. “You will have to get rid of the ugly paint. This shade of pink makes me slightly ill.”

“Yeah, kind of looks like that stomach medicine Tony gulps after he eats Indian food,” Steve absently commented. 

“Thank you. I needed that visual.” 

* * *

_And you will catch me if I fall / And I will get lost into your eyes / I know everything will be alright_   


_-Lifehouse, “Storm”_


End file.
